Hot For Teacher: Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks, right) woos his public speaking professor (Julia Roberts) in the midst of restarting his life after being laid off. Despite Roberts' lively performance, the film lacks enough emotional honesty to feel like an open reflection of current economic times.
Bruce Talamon/Universal Studios
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Wine And Dine: There's more than meets the eye to Warwick Wilson (David Hyde Pierce), who only seems like he's throwing a large dinner party. Whatever fun there is to be had in this overstuffed film comes from Pierce's outrageous hallucinations.
Magnolia Pictures
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Pajama Party: Terri (Jacob Wysocki) drifts through empty school days in his sleepwear until Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly) decides to take him under his wing. The film adeptly mines humor from a protagonist who wanders around the fringes of a dissatisfying life.
ATO Pictures
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Margaret Mitchell, pictured above in 1941, started writingwhile recovering from an ankle injury in 1926. She had read her way through most of Atlanta's Carnegie Library, so her husband brought home a typewriter and said: "Write your own book to amuse yourself." The result was Gone with the Wind.
Al Aumuller/Telegram & Sun/Library of Congress
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Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind was published 75 years ago this month. A 1936 promotional poster for the book shows heroine Scarlett O'Hara running through the streets as Atlanta burns.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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Another Run: Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) flees from evil killer space robots yet again in the "stupendous piece of blockbusting" that is the latest installment of the Transformers franchise.
Jaimie Trueblood/Paramount Pictures
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Viorel (Cristi Puiu), a divorced, bitter malcontent, is plotting to turn his simmering rage into action. The film depicts his arduous preparations in a stately, unhurried manner, using long takes and shots framed at a distance.
Cinema Guild
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Need A Lift?: In the humble but happy Larry Crowne, Tom Hanks is a middle-aged salesman who goes back to college, where he enrolls in a class taught by Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts).
Bruce Talamon/Universal Studios
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